Germenes y La Sirenita

Hey, I had a entry half-done! I'm just going to post it as-is and continue with Fri-Sun as a weekend entry.
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So…the week after that didn’t have many interesting events until the weekend. Then, oh boy, THEN I had some experiences. And the week after that…I love typing this and knowing that all of that nonsense is over. :D success!

On that Tuesday I got a bit of a surprise walking to the bus stop, and I was just thankful it was directed at another girl and not me or I would have caused a scene screaming like the gringa I am for sure. There was a man dressed in a green body suit, with ‘German’ written on his chest (I think I just didn’t see all of the word, and that it really said ‘Germenes’, or germs) hiding in a garbage bag on the ground behind a partial wall. He jumped up and out of the bag, as if from thin air, and then just stood there smiling. I guess he was proving some sort of point about public health and germs being everywhere? I think he was also wearing a green mask, but that might just be my imagination making him more awesome than he was. Don’t get me wrong, he was awesome, but he had the potential to scare me half to death with his activism. I had very mixed feelings on him at the time.

On Thursday, there was a decently long temblor (tremor, not earthquake). I was cutting up a pineapple at the time, and continued along with what I was doing after briefly noting the quake, but then got a bit more nervous when a friend of one of the guys in my house asked if we should get under a doorway or outside or something. I told her that these happened all the time because Costa Rica was made of three tectonic plates that were fairly active (score one for my Natural History class!) and that we shouldn’t worry, but right as the words were coming out of my mouth it got stronger, and didn’t stop after the normal 30 seconds. Way to make me look like a fool, earth’s natural processes. But then it did stop, and everything was fine.

Later that night I went to el Teatro Nacional for the first time to see a saxophone concert and then a ballet. The concert was amazing, and I was just a liiiiittle too tired to be awake for the entire hour (^^; whoops). It was part of a program they have called ‘Música al Atardecer’ wherein they have cheap ($2) concerts at 5:10 every Thursday. I love that concept, and I’m definitely going back. The whole thing was Latin rhythms, and the Salsa one definitely kept me awake while the soothing Bolero let me drift back into semi-consciousness.

Afterwards, I decided I needed a coffee before seeing “La Sirenita” (THE LITTLE MERMAID! I was so excited when I learned Sirena meant Mermaid and put two and two together), but couldn’t find the coffee shop I wanted. I braced myself for horrendous prices and entered the theater once more, but was pleasantly surprised that my coffee only cost a bit more than coffee at McDonalds, and was way better. I felt all refined with my fancy raspberry chocolate coffee and journaling my thoughts on the previous concert, waiting for the ballet…Then I met some other Americans, who were just sitting down to eat before the ballet (we were all very excited). They asked me how the prices were, and I was happy to bring them the good news. Certainly that café has higher prices than the nearby fast food places, but spending less than $10 on any item I wanted off the menu, in the most prestigious theater? I definitely think that’s surprisingly reasonable.

After some worry that the girls I was supposed meet up with wouldn’t come, they showed up and we got our seats. The ballet was good, and a lot shorter than I expected, but apparently I’m not a ballet person. I kept waiting for them all to sing, and that never quite happened…So from now on I’ll stick to musicals, unless it’s The Nutcracker, which has amazing music.

There was a screen that projected lights and bubbles on the stage, and at one point the prince (there were only female dancers…and then there was the projected prince? The lead still ‘danced’ with him, I’ve never seen or thought of that before). My favorite part was with manta rays, where everyone was lying on their stomachs and then lifted their trunks to reveal white tummies! Very adorable. I have a whole new appreciation for the ballerinas after doing yoga, I have to say, the way they can contort themselves is amazing. Just lifting one’s trunk up that far…incredible.
The most interesting part was that everyone was very young. The lead was 16 or 17, and I think everyone else was that age or younger. The National Theater lets all sorts of groups in! I think that is very nice, though at first unexpected, because how wonderful is it to be able to dance in such a prestigious place without being the elite of the elite. I think sharing the spotlight is a good thing :)